NEWARK -- Chaos erupted at the Newark City Council meeting Wednesday night as residents' fury over housing opportunities escalated into heated exchanges between the public and city employees.

"That's disrespectful," a city employee yelled before confronting a group of residents being escorted out by police, as they, too, screamed back.

But residents said they were the ones being disrespected by city employees -- and elected leaders.

"This has become ridiculous ... people are mad," tenant advocate Felicia Alston-Singleton said during public comment. "The disrespect comes from the elected officials that we put in place that don't answer questions. You got employees jumping up in citizens' faces."

Throughout the night, residents vented their frustrations with the lack of low-income housing in the city and decried two separate measures to increase building density in the city. One would allow buildings near the city's riverfront to tower as high as 40 stories and another proposal in the Ironbound near Penn Station would increase building heights to 12 stories. Residents also questioned why such plans were being considered before the council approved an inclusionary zoning ordinance that would require affordable housing in new development.

"Industry has been dumping and polluting and have prevented the public use for the river," said resident Janise Afolo. "Now that the riverfront and river is being revised, our access is being restricted by building 40-story buildings that will block our view."

"What currently exists there now is vacant properties," Central Ward Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins said of the areas affected by the ordinance in her ward. "They're going to be displacing property that is currently being used for flat surface parking. We are trying to build density responsibly in the Central Ward where that hub is."

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East Ward Councilman Augusto Amador amended the riverfront measure, removing two lots he said were already set aside as green space and should not be built on.

"You can't take away open space that has already been allocated into a park," he said.

"I do not think we should pass anything if we can't pass everything," Baraka told the council, referring to inclusionary zoning and the two building density proposals. He said unless the council could approve a plan to create affordability in the city, it should not green-light plans to increase and incentivize development. "At the end of the day, we need to go with all these things."

Baraka said a household earning $19,232 could pay $640 rent a month at the new Hahne & Co. building that set aside affordable units.

Residents in the room supported the idea of inclusionary zoning but some questioned who it was really going to benefit.

The inclusionary zoning ordinance requires developments with 30 or more units to set aside 20 percent of housing for low- and moderate-income residents or pay money to help build those units elsewhere.

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About a dozen people gathered outside City Hall prior to the council meeting to rally against gentrification. (Karen Yi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

About an hour prior to the meeting housing advocates staged a rally outside City Hall denouncing proposed density and height increases in Newark.

Nancy Zak, an organizer with the Ironbound Community Corporation, said such moves were a "betrayal" to citizens who for years worked with the city and developers to finalize Newark's master plan and Riverfront Park's redevelopment.

"You're going to undo all the work people did," Zak said. "To me that's the biggest loss here."

"Whose vision is this?" asked ICC director Joseph Della Fave. "It did not come out of the master plan, it did not come out of the public."

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Housing issues dominated the five-hour council meeting. But the frustration in the room exploded when resident Yanira Cortes spoke about decrepit conditions in her federally-subsidized apartment. She was joined at the podium by her four children, one of whom asked why she had to live with rats.

When Cortes left the podium and began complaining that local elected officials had done nothing to help her, longtime activists in the public grew outraged when it seemed she and her children were going to be escorted out of the meeting.